Latest – Page 676
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Reviews
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
Dir: McG. US. 2003. 111 mins. As its title suggests, the sequel to autumn 2000 hit Charlie's Angels revs up the goofy humour and preposterously gaudy action elements of the first movie - and leaves coherent narrative even further behind in the dust. Youthful moviegoers who helped the original to ...
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Reviews
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
Dir: Mike Hodges. USA/UK. 2003. 103 mins Midway between a psychological thriller and a tough action movie, with a touch of existential soul-searching but never really making up its mind which way to go, Mike Hodges' new film looks better than it actually is and promises much more than it ...
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Reviews
Alex & Emma
Dir: Rob Reiner. US. 2003. 96 mins Rob Reiner, of course, earned his romantic comedy spurs with When Harry Met Sally. And Kate Hudson showed a talent for the genre in last winter's $100m-plus US grosser How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days. But neither director nor star manages ...
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Reviews
Alex & Emma
Dir: Rob Reiner. US. 2003. 96 mins Rob Reiner, of course, earned his romantic comedy spurs with When Harry Met Sally. And Kate Hudson showed a talent for the genre in last winter's $100m-plus US grosser How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days. But neither director nor star manages ...
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Reviews
Dallas 362
Dir: Scott Caan. US. 2003. 90 mins. Having made a name for himself playing henchmen or simpletons in films like Gone In 60 Seconds, Ready To Rumble and Oceans Eleven, actor Scott Caan - the son of James Caan - shows he is anything but simple with his directorial debut ...
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Reviews
The Stroll
Dir. Alexei Uchitel. Russia, 2003. 90 min.Alexei Uchitel's first film since he represented Russia in the Oscars in 2000 with His Wife's Diary is an easygoing romp which turns out to be a challenge in more ways than one. The opening attraction at this year's Moscow Festival, it is light, ...
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Reviews
Crimson Gold
Dir: Jafar Panahi. Iran. 2003. 96mins.The triumphant march of Iranian cinema continues apace. After Samira Makhmalbaf's At Five In The Afternoon won the jury prize in the main competition at Cannes comes Crimson Gold, Jafar Panahi's fourth feature, which picked up the Un Certain Regard jury prize. Set in present-day ...
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Reviews
Deep Breath
Dir: Parviz Shahbazi. Iran. 2003. 86minsThe most acclaimed Iranian films of recent years have opened the world's eyes to the plight of women in a brutal patriarchal society. Deep Breath widens the debate by reflecting the experience of a defiantly apathetic younger generation who feel no investment in the system ...
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Reviews
Les Cotelettes
Dir. Bertrand Blier. France, 2003. 86 mins.Cannes selectors must have been pretty desperate to drag this dubious comedy, met at the end of its press screening with vociferous booing, into the world's most prestigious film competition. Adapted from Blier's stage debut, which was a hit, this is simply a dialogue-driven ...
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Reviews
Shara
Dir: Naomi Kawase. Japan. 2003. 100 minsThe third feature by Japanese director Naomi Kawase, Cannes competitor Shara is set, like Suzaku (a Cannes Camera d'Or winner in 1996) and Hotaru (2000), in the director's home province of Nara. Like the previous two, it deals with themes of separation, the continuity ...
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Reviews
Overnight
Dir: Mark Brian Smith. US. 2003. 120mins.This candid documentary about Troy Duffy, a blue collar Boston twenty-something who struck a dream movie deal with Miramax in 1997, has the same compelling allure as watching a train wreck. It could comfortably be renamed How To Lose Friends And Alienate People In ...
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Reviews
Quaresma (Careme)
Dir: Jose Alvaro Morais. Portugal. 2003. 95minsExclusively for followers of Portuguese cinema and dealing with national traumas that do not always translate into dramatic narrative sense, Jose Alvaro Morais' latest effort, Quaresma, while visually impressive, remains pretty much a puzzle for those who will wish to take the plot at ...
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Reviews
Robinson's Crusoe
Dir: Lin Cheng-sheng. Taiwan. 2003. 90minsFor this contemplative, static portrait of a successful Taipei real estate dealer, unhappy with his life and his career but unable to make a decisive move elsewhere, director Lin Cheng-sheng - never one to rush proceedings - seems to have slowed to a crawl. The ...
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Reviews
Hollywood Homicide
Dir: Ron Shelton. US. 2003. 115minsYou can't hit a home run every time you come up to bat, but director Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, Tin Cup, White Men Can't Jump) strikes out completely with his latest film, a buddy-buddy action comedy set not in the world of sports but against ...
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Reviews
Niki&Flo
Dir: Lucian Pintilie. France-Romania. 2003. 98minsVeteran Romanian director Lucian Pintilie has crafted a fitfully amusing, occasionally absorbing fable of slow disintegration around a fragile story of a father who feels increasingly lonely and alienated as his children leave home, one for the afterlife and the other for the US. Mixing ...
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Reviews
Dumb And Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd
Dir: Troy Miller. US. 2003. 82mins.A dead-on impression of Jim Carrey in one of his most popular early performances may not be a bad asset for a belated follow-up to a gross-out comedy classic. But without the real Carrey - or original writer-directors the Farrelly brothers - in attendance, New ...
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Reviews
S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine
Dir: Rithy Panh. France. 2003. 101minsA sincere and honourable attempt to fathom the depths of human evil, documentary S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine offers eyewitness testimony to the painstaking system of torture and repression that existed in Cambodia during the 1970s. The film returns victims of the regime and ...
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Reviews
Drifters
Dir. Wang Xiaoshuai. Hong Kong. 2003. 120minsWang Xiaoshuai's follow-up to his Berlin winner Beijing Bicycle goes back to the more hermetic, introverted style that established his reputation with arthouse patrons in his earlier films. Drifters, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, is a Hong Kong production shot in ...
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Reviews
Joao Botelho's satirical stab at US 'imperialism'
Dir: Joao Botelho. Portugal, 2003. 90minsThis was not a very good year for Cannes openers. After the debacle of Fanfan La Tulipe in the Official Section, the Directors' Fortnight, evidently thinking a light intellectual entertainment with a political theme would be the best choice to launch the programme of the ...